


they've got the kingdom locked up

by alamorn



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Emotional Manipulation, M/M, The Dog Bites Back, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-09 00:02:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8868304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alamorn/pseuds/alamorn
Summary: Credence feels wrong, somehow. There’s an emptiness in him where his magic should be, and he hunches around it, desperate to fill it. It’s easy enough to convince him that he can fill himself with Graves.





	

**Author's Note:**

> credit to Halsey's "Castle" for the title, and for "begging for a fist around it"

Credence feels _wrong_ , somehow. There’s an emptiness in him where his magic should be, and he hunches around it, desperate to fill it. It’s easy enough to convince him that he can fill himself with _Graves_.

 

When Gellert was seven, he found a mutt in the street. It was a nothing sort of dog, made small by fear and hunger, tail tucked, ribs showing. He didn’t know why he lured it in — the impulse was not kindness, not even at seven. But lure it he did, with a soft voice, with scraps of food.

When he is Graves, when he is thirty-seven, he finds Credence Barebone, a nothing sort of boy, made small by hunger and fear, shoulders hunched, cheekbones like knives. He knows why he lures Credence in — not a vision, but months and months of painstaking research narrowing it down, and Credence is an easy target. He lures him in with soft words, with the warmth of his hands.

 

He doesn’t make the connection.

 

The dog clung to his legs, stuck to his shadow, flinched from his touch. All hands were blows to come. It annoyed him, the shivering, useless creature that cleaved so tightly to him. He put it on a leash so he could pull it forward, tie it up when he tired of it.

Credence would sit at Graves’ feet, if he let him, would rest his chin on Graves’ knee. Credence has a throat that begs for a fist around it. Credence offers his neck for the collar of Graves’ fingers, and Graves takes it. Credence is always stiff, there is always a flicker of fear before the touch lands. He does not even try to hold his balance, so desperate for someone to lean on that he does not even check the ground beneath his feet. Graves fastens the pendant with a heavy satisfaction, pushes his thumbs into the hollows of his jaw, runs his fingertips along the nobs of Credence’s spine, considers. They will be done soon, and he will be away from this boy drowning on dry land.

The feeling is curious. Half relief, half disappointment. If only Credence were the obscurial! He would do anything Graves asked of him, and that is an altogether more interesting power than what flies from his wand.

 

When he collared the dog, it whined and scratched, shook and trembled and hid in the corner. On the leash it was biddable enough, for all that it never stopped its shaking.

Credence tucks the pendant inside his shirt and Graves fancies he can feel the boy’s heart beating. He touches it through his clothes, when he thinks no one is looking. His skin is red and irritated where the chain rubs him. 

 

One day, on a walk, a cart spooked the dog. It pressed against his legs and would not move. In a hurry, he yanked the leash and cursed at it. Nothing made it budge. When he lifted his leg to kick it into motion, it slipped the collar and sank its teeth into his leg.

Blood buzzing — so close, so close — he said what he had to, what he’d been holding back for so long, and expected Credence to slink away. When he looks through the walls and sees the boy, still hunched, still hurting, but crackling with magic, smelling of lightning, he thinks, _Oh_. And when Credence says, “I don’t think I _want_ to, Mr. Graves,” his cock  _throbs_ in time with the old scar on his leg.

**Author's Note:**

> hang out with me on [tumblr](http://www.alamorn.tumblr.com)


End file.
